There’s more trouble at Lincoln Hills but this time it’s staff members, raising concerns about safety.

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Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for girls have been the subject of an ongoing federal investigation for nearly three years.(Photo: Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)Buy Photo

Costs and reports of violence have both skyrocketed at the state’s troubled youth prison, raising questions about whether the institution has entered a financial tailspin.

Counties already are pulling inmates out of Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, threatening its funding and its future.

The 34% cost increase — $98 more per inmate per day — and a rash of incidents may cause local officials to send even fewer teenage offenders to the Northwoods prison, which remains under a nearly three-year FBI investigation and a separate federal court order.

Kerry Milkie, manager of the Racine County Youth and Family Division, called it "frustrating and disappointing" that the extra cost wouldn't do more to increase services at Lincoln Hills.

"It's like rubbing salt in the wound a little," Milkie said. "So we continue to look at alternatives."

So does Milwaukee County, which has already cut its transfers to Lincoln Hills by nearly half over the past 20 months and wants to keep up that trend. Like Racine County, Milwaukee officials say local facilities keep inmates more connected to family members and result in less recidivism.

"We are working hard to get more placements in the community," said Melissa Baldauff, a spokeswoman for Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.

In keeping with national trends, youth in the state's system have been decreasing for years as juvenile arrests have declined substantially and counties handle more offenders locally. That has had major effects on Lincoln Hills, the state's main remaining prison for youth, where inmates now have more serious histories on average than they did two decades ago.

Under the new state budget, the prison's per inmate cost has risen from $292 last year to $390 today, or more than $142,000 a year.

The higher rates will pay for more security and mental health staff and enable nurses to administer medicine instead of guards, said Corrections spokesman Tristan Cook said. But the higher costs for counties also reflect the fact that the state has fewer inmates from which to collect money.

Jim Moeser, a former state juvenile corrections head, said the rising expense to counties makes incarceration options closer to home more cost-effective.

"They eventually price themselves out of the market," Moeser said of the state.

Moeser sees that as a good thing, saying that local rehabilitation efforts are more effective.

In October 2014, Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake had roughly 300 inmates on their shared campus. Today, they have 160, a decrease of nearly half.

The inmates remaining often have serious histories and convictions, from murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, to battery, burglary and arson.

"Given the very serious offense history as well as the significant education, mental health and programming needs of youth in DOC custody, DOC has been ... adding positions to increase security, expand mental health treatment and grow programs available to youth," Cook said.

But as the prison charges to counties have increased in recent weeks, so have reports of violence at the prison.

On Sunday, five prison workers had to go to the hospital after a pair of incidents. Two weeks ago, an inmate punched a prison teacher in the face, knocking her out and giving her a black eye.

Details also emerged this week of an Aug. 3 incident in which four juvenile inmates climbed a dorm roof and brandished 4-foot metal pipes at the guards attempting to force them down with pepper spray.

Baldauff, the Abele spokeswoman, said the county has staff visiting Lincoln Hills and plans to give judges in Milwaukee other sentencing options for teens.

"Absolutely, this is concerning to us," Baldauff said of the rash of incidents.

In January 2016, Milwaukee County had 104 youths in Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, but the number has since fallen to 57 teens.

The county is seeking proposals from vendors to help run a 24-bed treatment facility that, if launched and fully used, could nearly halve Milwaukee transfers to Lincoln Hills.

Keeping inmates near the county has advantages, said Baldauff and Milkie, the Racine County official. Local facilities can draw on a deeper and more diverse pool of workers and services.

Families can also visit more easily, compared with the hours of travel needed to reach Lincoln Hills from southeastern Wisconsin.

"We can work with family about what's happening in the home," Milkie said. "So when this kid goes home, he's not going home to the same old, same old."

Racine County has just a handful of teens at Lincoln Hills today, but Milkie says she would like to house those few locally, too. Inmates released from Lincoln Hills end up behind bars at substantially higher rates than those kept locally, she said.

Dane County is down to just three inmates at Lincoln Hills, but the state needs to fix its "well-documented" problems, spokesman Stephanie Miller said.

"Judges need a safe facility for juveniles as an option," she said.

Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee) still sees a use for Lincoln Hills.

Driven by a crackdown on drunken drivers, the state's adult prisons are already over capacity and Corrections Secretary Jon Litscher has talked about the need to open an additional prison in the next several years.

Goyke said the state should turn Lincoln Hills into a prison offering substance abuse treatment for adults, lowering the existing waiting list for those services. In its place, the state could open several regional facilities for teen offenders that offer a fuller range of services, under legislation Goyke is drafting.

"I look at the trends of population and cost and I see an inevitability," Goyke said of Lincoln Hills. " We're either going to be ready for it or caught by surprise."